L. Rowell Huesmann, PhD Biography

Title:

Professor of Psychology and Communication Studies at the University of Michigan

Position:

Pro
to the question
"Do Violent Video Games Contribute to Youth Violence?"

Reasoning:

“[T]here are now many cases, recent cases, where kids have behaved very violently and obviously have been influenced by violent video games, one way or the other. There have been cases where kids have apparently followed scripts of video games in shooting a policeman, for example. So I think those clearly have an effect…

I think we know two things. We know that video games teach specific behavioral scripts: how to shoot. They can teach how to land an aircraft, but they can also teach how to teach how to shoot–the muscle movements, the cognitive decisions that you need to make. And we know that they also emotionally desensitize, which makes it easier to shoot, because you don’t have the negative emotional feelings that would arise in any of us, if we started to point a gun at another human, and thought about the results of that.”

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